She was silent for a long moment and then she said, “What’s going on, Kellan?”
“No time. I’ve got to go.” His hand clenched around the phone and he bit back the words that were dancing on his tongue. “Do what I said, okay?”
“Sure. Are you-”
He took the turn into the hospital at fifty miles an hour, tires squealing. “I’ve got to go… Darci, I think I’m in love with you.”
Then he hit the end button and tossed the phone down, slamming on the brakes in front of the emergency room. He ran through the automatic doors, down the hall that led to ICU, fear and anger a metallic taste in his throat. Whose blood?
Grady’s voice rang out down the hall. “I will not tell you again, Miz Ralley. Step back or I will shoot.”
The laughter that came from her was unlike any he had heard before. High, maniacal, and wild. He slowed to a stop as he veered around the corner, staring at Peggy’s back. No blood… But then she turned around and he saw the chilling smile on her face. Bright red blossoms stained the front of her paint-splattered shirt.
“Peggy.”
She smiled at him, a brittle smile. “Things are all messed up. I should have killed Darci that night, and then maybe Bryce would have stopped thinking about her all the time. I wasn’t going to kill him. Not until he called me Darci again. The bastard.”
He flicked Grady a glance, but then looked back at Peggy when he saw that the deputy was slowly moving closer to the woman’s back.
“Bryce?”
Peggy laughed. “I thought you were smarter than this,” she said, shaking her head. “Took you long enough to figure it out. I thought you might put it together after Beth, but you were too busy fucking Darci. Della was going to be next. But then Tricia started to freak out…” her voice trailed off and she wiped a hand down the front of her shirt, lovingly caressing the blood splotches. “Well, she made me mad.”
“Mind if I ask why you did all this?”
Grady was just a few feet away now, gun raised. “Well, not for money. I know that’s why Tricia did it. All the great artists died tragically,” she said with a wide smile. She started to reach inside her shirt.
“Keep your hands where I can see them!” Kellan barked out.
But she didn’t stop and when he found himself staring down the business end of a Beretta, he finally figured it out. All of it. She wanted them to kill her. She wasn’t here to kill them, but to force them to kill her.
Suicide by cop, the coolest way to kill yourself… He drew his gun because he sure as hell wasn’t going to let some crazy-ass self-important artist kill him.
“Put the gun down, Peggy.”
She laughed, but whatever she was going to say died as her eyes went wide and then fluttered shut. There was a thud as Grady’s gun came down on her skull, a soft thump as her body crumpled to the floor, and then all fell silent.
Kellan sucked in air, blood roaring in his ears as he lowered the gun, watching as Grady kicked her Beretta away and knelt down, tugging out his cuffs and securing her hands before touching his fingers to her throat. He rose and blew out a breath, his mahogany skin gleaming under a thin coat of sweat, his eyes wide.
“Son of a bitch. This woman is nuts,” Grady whispered, shaking his head.
Tricia’s body was already cool by the time Kellan and two of the deputies broke down the door to the gallery. Peggy Ralley had had some fun before she left. None of the art in the gallery that wasn’t done by her hand had survived her rampage intact. Sculptures lay smashed on the floor. Canvases sliced by a knife, and a few, the two closest to Tricia’s body, had bloody splotches.
“She used the knife she killed Tricia with,” Kellan murmured quietly.
Grady knelt by the door, studying the shattered pieces of a rich purple vase. “Why didn’t we see it before now?”
“No rhyme or reason. We were looking for something that made sense.” Kellan shook his head, straightening over Tricia’s still body. He met the coroner’s gaze as Drake Stillman stepped inside, looking around the gallery with vague surprise in his eyes.
Things like this didn’t happen in their county.
Kellan suspected that this past month had been the busiest of the county coroner’s life. He gestured to the bagged knife lying on the table.
“I’m fairly certain that’s the murder weapon,” he said. “I think she used it to slice up the paintings. We found it on the floor by Tricia’s body, like she’d tossed it away before she walked out. Then she showed up at the hospital with blood on her clothes.”
Drake’s question was cut off by the ringing of Kellan’s phone. He checked out the number and said, “It’s the hospital,” as he thumbed the talk button. “This is Grant,” he said, turning away from the curious gazes.
He listened to the low murmur of the nurse on the other end of the line and then hung up the phone, turning back to meet Grady’s eyes. “She’s awake. I’ve got to get back there.”
Darci paced the floor, shooting evil looks at the silent phone. Four hours had passed since Kellan had called and she hadn’t heard another thing from him.
She stood at the window in the dining room, staring out at the silvery moonlight reflecting off the river. I think I’m in love with you…
“Jerk. How in the hell can you say that and hang up, and not call back?” she muttered, running a hand through her already tumbled hair. It stood up in messy spikes and curls from a hundred nervous passes of her hand. She rested her forehead against the cool pane of glass, closing her eyes and murmuring, “Where in the hell are you?”
Worry was a gnawing thing in her belly, making her gut churn, tightening her shoulders, aching in her head. Her fingers itched to pick up the phone and call, but she forced herself not to. Calling him, interrupting him…what if he was finding out who the killer was?
What if…if…what if the killer had gotten to him?
Panic blossomed in her mind and she turned around, bypassing the phone and heading out the front door, jogging down the steps. She heard Hank’s door slam and he met her on the sidewalk.
“What’s going on, Miss Law? What’s wrong?”
“Where’s Kellan?” she demanded.
“Darci, he wants you to stay inside,” Hank said flatly, taking her arm and trying to guide her back up the walk.
She jerked her arm away and planted herself in Hank’s face, poking him in the chest as she demanded, “Tell me where Kellan is. What in the hell is going on?”
His face softened and she felt a flush rise in her cheeks as the sympathy darkened his faded gray eyes. “He’s probably back at the hospital. Talking to Peggy Ralley.”
Darci’s jaw dropped and she felt her shoulders slump. “Not another one. Damn it, what is going on?”
Hank patted her shoulder. “Maybe I didn’t make that clear, Miss Law. He’s questioning Peggy Ralley. She showed up at the hospital this afternoon, blood splattering her shirt. Pulled a gun on the Sheriff. Turns out the gun wasn’t loaded. Possible that she wanted him to shoot her. They disarmed her somehow-I don’t know the details. But I’d say it’s over.”
The phone finally rang. Five and half hours after he’d told her that he thought he was in love with her, and then hung up on her. Oh, it had rung a few times before, just shortly after Hank told her about Peggy.
But it had been everybody but Kellan. Becka, Clive, Brittany…each time, she’d gotten off the phone with a curtness that bordered on outright rudeness, not wanting to talk to anybody but Kellan.
The phone rang again and she grabbed it, the strength leaving her knees as Kellan’s low voice murmured in her ear, “Wasn’t sure if you’d still be awake.”